On November 26, an inebriated male passenger exposed himself and urinated on a 70-year-old woman on an Air India flight between New York and Mumbai. The obnoxious act occurred in the carrier’s business class and the man was let go without any repercussions. The matter came to light only a month later when the media picked it up.
There has been much outrage, and understandably so, regarding Air India’s inaction and the flight crew’s apathy. However, a larger question begs to be answered: Just why do Indians make such lousy co-passengers? While what happened on the Air India flight is an extreme case, uncouth inconsideration among travellers is as common as potholes on Indian streets. And like potholes, such incivility has ruined many a happy day.
Everyone has probably had bad experiences while travelling, whether it is your co-passenger lacking the courtesy to use headphones while listening to music, or someone holding up a check-in queue, simply because they refuse to pay for the excess baggage they are carrying. However, while one will come across the occasional brat abroad, Indians seem to have a particular affinity for being inconsiderate.
Consider the scene in the cabin of a passenger plane when it lands. Even before the seatbelt sign goes off, throngs of passengers cue up with their bags to deboard the aircraft. The poor cabin crew. While newer members might request people to remain seated (they go unheard), the sheer resignation from older flight attendants tells its own story.
Or think of the growing dread upon seeing a family open a can of some pungent pickle on a flight. As the smell of mustard oil and chillies wafts through the confined space of an aircraft cabin, there is little respite for co-passengers.
That Indians are lousy travellers is a commonly held perception at home and abroad. Stories of Indian tourists stealing hotel accessories are fairly common. So are stories of Indians binge drinking free alcohol. Thus, when the Air India incident came to light, while despicable, it failed to surprise me.
Civic sense of any degree rests on a shared feeling of community — not narrowly defined but one that includes every person. This sense of community breeds empathy for the other, and with empathy comes consideration. For civic sense to exist, every individual needs to feel equally responsible for the common good, not just in an abstract sense, but in real tangible terms (like not littering on the streets, for instance).
Unfortunately, India is a society stratified along multiple lines, but majorly along the lines of caste. The institution of caste does not just divide society into sub-groups, by putting it on a hierarchy, it pits these groups against each other. As B R Ambedkar wrote in Annihilation of Caste, “Caste has killed public spirit. Caste has destroyed the sense of public charity… Virtue has become caste-ridden and morality has become caste-bound.”
In a society where tribal loyalties of caste are foremost, why does an individual have to be considerate to an abstract other in the public? There is simply no foundation to develop empathy and thus foster a civic sense. Think of the time when you saw some poor waiter getting yelled at for serving the wrong dish. Granted, they made a mistake, but does that entitle someone to be cruel and rude? Unfortunately in India, we treat those who serve us as servants, and we treat servants as inferior human beings. Caste plays a big role here.
Ambedkar argued that fraternity is the bedrock of a healthy democracy. India lacks this. Our identities are strong and often in such conflict that we can never look beyond them. Further, life is a daily struggle to survive for many Indians. In such circumstances, the possibility of developing true empathy for people around oneself is greatly hampered. Self-interest and extreme preoccupation with oneself is a guiding principle for Indians’ lives.
The Air India incident is just another instance of Indians being badly behaved travellers. It shows the side of our country that no amount of glitz and glamour can hide. After all, it did not happen in some shady corner of Mumbai. This was on a business class seat on an international flight.
I am sure there are other factors at play here. Notably, I wonder what role patriarchy and gender relations play in this matter. What cannot be ignored, however, is just how far away we are from being a society which can be proud of itself, the true fraternal community that our Constitution envisions India to be.
Source : TheIndianExpress
